


we change (and we grow)

by se7ensecrets



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 15:38:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17686262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/se7ensecrets/pseuds/se7ensecrets
Summary: This is just Hecate and Pippa having a slightly (only slightly lol) more thorough conversation about why Hecate trashed their friendship way back when. It's a small exploration of how things would be if they actually disclosed that they'd had feelings for each other as teenagers, but having nothing come of it other than a fuller understanding of one another.





	we change (and we grow)

_”You were the popular one, you didn’t need me getting in your way.”  
_

_”I didn’t care about those silly witches! You were the only one I wanted to be friends with.”_

_”But… I thought-”_

_”What? Because you were the tall, gangly one that I’d rather be friends with them?”_

 

* * *

 

“I can’t help feeling like there was more to it than just silly adolescent insecurity.”

Hecate looks up from their completed game of chess, Knight and Rook in her hands and her eyes more alert than was normal. “What do you mean?” she asks, her voice suddenly careful, continuing to reset all the pieces in their correct spaces on the board.

Pippa looks down, pensive, drawing her bottom lip into her mouth to worry it between teeth. “It couldn’t have been that easy, could it?”

Hecate narrows her eyes some, attempting to gauge where this conversation is going without having to ask.

Pippa lets out a little amused huff at the serious look that’s fallen upon her friend’s face. “I don’t mean to dredge up old wounds or conflicts, but it is something that’s been weighing on my mind as of late.”

Leaving the chess board in disarray, Hecate sits back against her chair, tapping her fingers against the arms of it in a nervous, unsure manner. “I’ll… do my best to give answers to anything you find confusing.”

At Hecate’s go ahead, Pippa leans closer, resting her elbows on the small nook table that’s between them. Hecate tried not to feel the need to bolt. “I suppose I just never understood exactly why you felt the need to leave. Did it really all boil down to feeling inadequate when it came to whatever popularity I may have had at school, and all the little cliques I ran in, or was it something…” Pippa pauses for a moment, “or was it something more than that?”

Hecate looks away at Pippa’s unabating stare, can feel her still searching her eyes even as they stare out the window.

When they return, they had stiffened a small amount. “I’m not quite sure if I understand what you mean.”

Pippa, not willing to give up yet, tries a different approach. “I know we were young, just teenagers, and when we’re that age everything feels so much bigger than us. But I have a hard time believing that you would have thrown our friendship away simply on the basis of feeling insecure about how I felt about you. Did our friendship really mean so little?”

“Of course not,” Hecate insists.

“Then what else? Had I done something wrong?”

“No! You never did anything wrong, it’s–” Hecate’s face grows red and she stands abruptly, pushing her chair out and stepping away from the table. She proceeds to walking a few paces, wringing her hands and trying to get her bearings.

“Do you want to know something?” Pippa whispers over to her, head hanging low. Hecate almost misses it in her anxious pacing, but it was enough to make her stop and turn back to her, waiting.

“I think I liked you as more than a friend, back then.” She smiles, sad and yet fond, as if the memory wasn’t altogether something to look back on with regret.

She’d said it so easily and with such a wistful softness that it made Hecate feel almost foolish for taking her own past feelings so seriously, guarding them as if they were some world destroying secret that could never be known.

Hecate swallowed before she dare open her mouth to speak, afraid the words would all but croak out. “You mean, you…” she trails off, stepping forward eagerly to better look into Pippa’s eyes for her answer.

“Yes. I quite fancied you.” She breaks into a full smile then, her eyes looking up at Hecate with slight mischief and something else she couldn’t place. “Tall, dark and handsome is how I usually like them.”

She heard Pippa snort, more than likely due to the comically shocked expression Hecate was sure she was sporting, and with pink cheeks, to boot.

“I think I need to sit down.”

“Oh come on, Hecate, is it really that surprising?” Pippa half blusters, eyes never leaving her form as Hecate rounds the table.

As she retakes her seat across from her, the look on Hecate’s face tells Pippa everything.

“Well,” she starts, hands coming up to wave nonchalantly, “it’s hardly anything we need to fret about. It was 30 years ago, after all. Ancient history.”

“Right.” Hecate takes a moment to gather her courage, “I suppose this would be as good a time as any to tell you that the feeling was mutual, then.”

Pippa’s eyes grew wide as she absorbed this new information, before succumbing to a sympathetic sadness and looking away to focus on the cherry stained wood of the table.

“Oh Hiccup,” she breathes.

Hecate thinks that maybe she shouldn’t have told her, should have left her to her warm memories of having an innocent crush on her clueless best friend that never would have lead to anything. Shouldn’t have tainted them with the realization that they could have been something more, that everything could have been so very different, if only Hecate had been brave enough. If only Hecate hadn’t of left.

“That’s why you left, isn’t it?” Pippa implored quietly, though it wasn’t posed as a question, more like a revelation.

“I’m afraid so,” Hecate states with a dulled tone, her voice full of resignation.

It was hardly anything new for Hecate to feel disappointed in herself. She’d been disappointed in her actions towards Pippa and their friendship, her feelings for her, for three decades now.

There was silence for awhile, enough for worry to start seeping into Hecate’s mindset. What if Pippa was just as disappointed in her?

“There’s no sense in dwelling on the past,” Pippa says, mercifully filling Hecate’s ears with her voice, and sounding far older and wiser than the teenage version of her that Hecate remembered so well. It surprised her at times, in the most pleasant of ways and reminded her of how different they are now. How different everything is.

But relief didn’t come until Pippa’s hand reached out across the side of the table, palm up and eyes shining with forgiveness and acceptance.

Hecate places her hand in Pippa’s and for the first time in years feels some of the weight she’d been holding inside herself, and between them, finally, _finally_ release and lift.


End file.
